1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to telecommunication and the Internet in general, and to verification for using voice gateways in particular.
2. Description of Related Art
For a company to be able to in an efficient way sell or give support on its products an effective interface to the market is required. This can for example be achieved by offering customers to call the company to order or ask questions relating to the products the company offers. By different types of functions, in Sweden 020-numbers, in the USA 800-numbers, also these can be free of charge. These calls are received in a call centre, in which a number of persons, competent to respond to questions related to the products, or to receive new orders answers the calls. These call centres do not have to be localised near the company, but can with the aid of for instance IN (Intelligent Networks) be localised in another completely different geographical place.
Telephony over the Internet is a new, growing market where a new type of companies appear. These companies offer for instance a service to be able to call from the Internet to an ordinary subscriber in the traditional telephone network. This is achieved by means of a voice gateway, which is connected to the traditional telephone network, such as PSTN or ISDN and to a packet switched network, for instance the Internet. The voice gateway transforms speech from the telephone network to packets adapted to the packet switched network, which are further transferred to a program in the user""s computer and are transformed to speech. Packets which are sent from the program and contains speech from the user are transformed in the voice gateway to a format adapted to the telephone network.
An Internet provider is in the following referred to as a company or person producing web-pages on the Internet. An Internet provider can also be a person or a company providing the connection to Internet over a telephone or a company or a person offering a third party to publish web-pages on the Internet. However, by the present invention it is important that the Internet provider also in one way or another publishes web-pages which may contain advertisements.
There is an increasing extent of interest in advertising on web-pages on the Internet for an ever increasing number of companies. These advertisements often consist of a so-called xe2x80x9cbannerxe2x80x9d with graphics, sometimes movable, and if one clicks on it, you will end up on the home-page of the advertiser. These advertisements can also be located on web-pages anywhere on the Internet. For companies which also provide a call centre, it can be interesting for the user, when he clicks on the advertisement, to be linked to the call centre instead of the home-page of the company, where he can obtain personal assistance with his product or order new products. The call can then be linked between a program on the user""s computer, over a voice gateway and further to the call centre.
If the operation of the voice gateway is done by the same company that handles the call centre, there will be no problems with verification of the user and the charging of the call costs for the call between the voice gateway and the call centre. Also, no problem will arise if the user pays for the call or if the call is free of charge in another way. But if the operator of the call centre wants to offer free telephone support to a user, but does not want to invest in a voice gateway of his own and the Internet provider does not either want to invest in a voice gateway, a third party could have as business idea to offer a telephone link between a user connected to the Internet and a B-subscriber. An Internet provider would then be able to offer free advertising on a web-page, where a click on the advertisement meant a call to the call centre. The operator of the call centre would pay the Internet provider for the advertisement and the provider of the voice gateway service would charge the Internet-provider. Problem then arises how the supplier of the voice gateway service in a secure way could be able to verify that a user is allowed to use the voice gateway and charge an Internet provider for only the calls originating from an advertisement on the web-server of the Internet provider.
A business link is obtained between a provider on a web-page which is interested in having customers to be able to contact the advertiser over the web-advertisement by phone, a provider of voice gateway-services and a provider of Internet services. To be able to charge between the provider of the gateway service and the Internet provider a verification is required and an interface between these parts. The Internet provider can also charge the advertiser for the extended value it requires to have direct telephone access to a customer.
The present invention is directed to above mentioned problem how a provider of voice gateway services for telephony over the Internet can be able to verify that a user is allowed to use voice gateway services.
Another problem that an embodiment of the invention solves is that a provider of voice gateway services can charge a provider of Internet services.
Another problem that an embodiment of the present invention solves is how to provide a provider of Internet services with a function providing a user to click on an Internet advertisement and hence set up a telephone call to a subscriber, for instance a call centre.
Thus, an object of the present invention is to provide a provider of Internet services and a provider of voice gateway services with a function for verification of a user to be allowed to use a voice gateway service.
Another object of an embodiment of the present invention is that a provider of voice gateway services for telephony over the Internet can supply and charge a provider of Internet services for using voice gateway services and how the verification and charging can be made safe.
Above described problems, how a verification of a user, which will use voice gateway services can be obtained, is solved by means of a verification function, which verifies a terminal of the provider of the voice gateway function.
In more detail, said problem described above is solved by a user activating an advertisement on a web-page, whereby said advertisement points to a specific B-subscriber in a telephony network, such as a PSTN or ISDN. Information about which voice gateway is to be used, the IP address for the program of the user, the IP-address of the web-server on which the web-page with the activated link is localised to, and further information are transferred between the web-server, the voice gateway, and the program of the user, so that it is ascertained that the user has obtained telephone numbers to the B-subscriber and the address to the voices gateway from the web server, whereafter the voice gateway sets up a call between the B-subscriber and the program of the user. The voice gateway registers the length of the call, from which web-server it originated, and the IP-address of the program of the user, and further information to be able to charge the operator of the web-server for the call. Thereby it is ascertained that the call occurring between the user and the advertiser originated in the advertisement of the operator of the web-server, which is also charged for the cost in a conventional way.
An advantage of the present invention is that a provider of voice gateway services can be able to verify that a user is allowed to use the voice gateway.
An advantage of the present invention is that a provider of voice gateway services can sell the functionality to an Internet provider.
Another advantage is that only Internet providers with a relation to the provider of voice gateway services can employ the services.
Yet another advantage is that one provider of voice gateway services can charge an Internet provider for using the voice gateway based on user.
The invention will now be described in more detail by way of preferred embodiments and with reference to accompanying drawings.